An official in the Hamas administration in Gaza announced that it suspended a crackdown campaign against its political rivals of Fatah party, which was scheduled for Monday night.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that the security forces of the dismissed government "have received orders to cancel the arrests that were planned to take place against Fatah leader as a revenge" following an attack against a Hamas lawmaker in the West Bank.

The lawmaker, Hamed al-Bitawi, was lightly wounded in the leg when a Fatah militant fired around him in Nablus city. Hamas considered the incident as an assassination attempt.

The source said that the crackdown was canceled upon an appeal to Ismail Haneya, Hamas's premier, by al-Bitawi.

The announcement of canceling the crackdown was made one day after an international human rights organizations called on Hamas to stop attacks against its political opponents.

The report said that "Internal political violence in Gaza and the West Bank is not new. Over the past three years, Hamas and its chief rival, Fatah, which controls the West Bank, have carried outarbitrary arrests of each other's supporters and subjected detainees to torture and ill-treatment."